Doc Martin Has Gone Downhill. Here's Why.

This article was originally published in the summer of 2019 to the movie reviewing app Stardust. Now that the app is officially shutting down, I figured it was time to move the articles I wrote for them onto this page. Here is the final of the four articles I wrote for them.

Watching Doc Martin over the past couple of months has certainly been interesting. I recently started the eighth season, and honestly, to me, the show doesn’t have nearly the same impact as it used to.

In the first three seasons, the characters were intriguing and three-dimensional. I loved the complex choices the show made for its characters and how it developed those choices, like Martin’s hemophobia, Martin and Louisa’s relationship, and the quirkiness of the town of Portwenn and its citizens. By season four, something started feeling a little off, and by seasons five through seven, I started to realize what was happening.

By those later seasons, the show had absolutely nowhere to go with its story. Characters were randomly dropped without any resolution to their arcs, and after a while, it became evident that the show would just replace those characters with others that fit the exact same role. The show requires these consistent character roles in order to function, and it seems that it doesn’t feel comfortable taking risks changing the roles around.

By the time the sixth season rolled around, I noticed that even the basic plot of each episode is the exact same. Martin gets annoyed with seemingly incompetent patients and argues with his love interest Louisa about some relationship problem. Father and son duo Bert and Al argue about business ventures and whether they should do business together or separately. The police officer (Mark or Joe, depending on the season) does something incredibly un-policeman-like and/or stupid, and Doc Martin’s aunt (Joan or Ruth) argues with him about how to fix the main issue in the episode. The plot culminates with someone collapsing after neglecting a medical emergency (seriously, they ALWAYS collapse), Doc Martin treating them, and everything resolving happily-- or not, depending on how abruptly the episode ends. It’s always THE SAME PLOT.

The show set itself up as a subtle character piece in the early seasons only to become a formulaic sitcom in the later ones. That’s already an incredibly disappointing direction. However, the reason why this decline is so personally disappointing to me is that Martin and Louisa’s relationship is actually still really well done. It feels like the writers are actually trying to keep their characters interesting and their stories unique each episode. To me, that demonstrates that the writers are able to put the same effort into the writing of the other characters... but they don’t. It really bothers me how terrified this show is of taking risks with any of the characters except for the main two.

Why do I still watch it and intend to keep watching it? Because even though each episode unfolds in the exact same way, it’s interesting to see how each episode does so. The series is never boring, and there have never really been any out-of-character moments from any of the main cast. The writers and the actors have kept the characters likable and consistent enough for the audience to want to keep coming back to visit the strange town of Portwenn.

What do you think of Doc Martin? Do you think the show has gotten repetitive or has it changed enough to keep itself interesting? Leave your answers in the comments below!

And for those of you who are reading this article in what is now two years in the future, are you excited for Doc Martin season 10 or are you done with the show's formula?